As I Might
by Noche Buena
Summary: Tristan and Rory both have a different story to tell...


  
  
  
  
I can't believe I'm still standing here, after school, listening to him go on like that. His eyes are a blinding shade of blue and he's staring at me under those eyelashes as he talks to me in this low, low voice and I just don't know what to say. I feel like I should stop him- stop him from saying something that might embarrass me- him, something that might embarrass him.

I feel a little bad for him. Almost.

I mean, we wouldn't be _having_ this conversation if it weren't for the fact that he wouldn't let me close my locker.

We'd all be happy and fine and not yelling at each other if it weren't for the fact that he's _always_ trying to spite me. Like now. Like not letting me open my locker and not letting me leave.

He started it. I know he did.

So why am I still here? Why am I standing here as though my feet were chained to the floor by some invisible force? I feel like I should go and leave him in his angry teenage angst. I don't need to go down to his level.

But he sounds so serious. Tristan almost never sounds serious. His voice became low and heated as soon as I started insulting him about the static electricity of his hair to my locker. I said I figured it must've been all the lead in his brain.

Usually he takes my come-backs and spits them out right back at me so they're charming and cute and flirty.

I can't do that when I'm with him. That's why I hate it when he starts being a total jerk. Then I have to start being mean and I *hate* being mean to people. 

" I can't get to you. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is-being here- _damn _it, Rory," he tells me, exasperated. His cheeks are flushed and his mouth is slightly ajar, the flesh on his lips brightening. My mouth opens to say something, but he shakes his head.

And suddenly, I have… I have this feeling in my stomach. I don't know what it is, it Oh, God. I know this sound, this tone of voice. I've heard it before. Where have I heard this? Why can't I think of it?

Think, Rory, _think_.

"I don't know what you want."

"I would like you to move so I can get into my locker, please," I say as lightly as I can. I clench my hand very slightly for a moment.

Do I really want him to leave me alone, though? I mean, he's one of the few people who talks to me at Chilton. We had actually gotten along quite well for a few 15 minutes. What is he trying to _do_?

Oh, my God. I recognize this. I get it. 

I know this. Why didn't I figure this out before? Everybody's told me but I didn't believe them. How could I have been so *stupid*?

Three. Simple. Words. He's not going to say it. He's not going to say it. 

I see his face contorted into one of solidness and ambition and-and- something I've seen before but hadn't recognized.

That tone of voice, I've heard it one time by another boy.

I've heard this tone every single time Tristan talks to me. A wariness, cautiousness, a dancing-upon-the-Hellmouth edge.

_But- it can't be_, my mind sputters indignantly. 

And then, he seems to read my mind and then he tells me he hates my eyes.

Along with that, he hates that- that I'm _beautiful_ and smart, and my skin (_what_?), and my heart.... my _purity_... (*what*?)

And- WHAT?! My 'unconscious seducing?' Where did that come from?

So, good. He hates me. Kind of.

Then he has to go screw things up by saying, "I hate it that I can't even touch you without you flinching or crawling away like something bit you. I haven't been this pathetic since- well, I don't know when."

I'm untouchable? Since when have I been put in a state of Virgin Hierarchy?

"You've always been pathetic," I say, suddenly wary that I'm definitely _not_ off the hook.

He tells me to shut up. I really wish I could at this point.

He's starting to swear, and I'm pretty sure I'm going have to hit him soon, because he won't shut up and I don't think I'll be able to do it nicely.

"When I'm asleep, you're never this…"

"Pissed off? _No_. Tristan. Move, please." 

Then he calls Dean an asshole. I slap him straight across the face, feeling the smooth stubble on his cheeks. I can't stand here and listen to him anymore, because things are getting really weird. Never mind my books. I turn on my heel, backpack threatening to spill me over into his arms.

He grabs my left arm gently before I can get two steps down the hallway.

Oh. Okay. Warm hand. 

"Hey! Come back! I didn't.. get to… you flinched again, you know that?"

He looks at me, voice cracking a little and in my daze I stand there, lips pursed. It's true. I flinched.

Tristan sort of looks away for a moment down the empty hallway. "I'm sorry. I promise not to touch you. But hear me out, okay? What I feel for you. It's like I've always kind of felt like this. It's really strange, and really weird, and I'm... really happy. But kind of not. And yeah. That's what I wanted to tell you. I…" his eyes flicker from the floor to the ceiling very quickly for a second.

And then, my breath hitches in my throat and my eyes fly open. Suddenly, his look is so intense I feel like I'm going to shatter into a thousand pieces. 

He's actually going to-? Yeah, he is. Oh, something, give me strength.

I can't breathe. What's wrong with me? _Breathe, dammit,_ I swear inwardly.

I can't bring myself to think it.

Tristan DuGrey might just be in love with me.

I thought it. 

I've never been so off-guard in my entire life. Not with Dean, not with _anybody_. He's just fooling around, right? Okay. This has gone beyond strangeness. I can't even tell you how strange this is.

"Um… I love you and you can't ever do anything to mess with that. You can mess with my brain, you can mess with me, but you won't ever mess with the fact that I love you. And I know you don't…"

He looks at me defensively, arms crossing against his chest. His eyes- they're staring right at me again, waiting for some sort of response, anything to stop the anguish of time passing still, and he's so close and he's so- so... I can hear him breathing, and that's the only thing I can hear as he looks at me searchingly, cocking his head just so as though he could hear all of my inner thoughts.

After that, nothing will ever shock me like that ever again. Nothing. 

That tone of voice, of course I know what it is. I thought I knew before... this is so wrong. So, so, so wrong.

He's telling me to go home and laugh about this, for me not to say anything more.

How can he tell me to do that?

Thought it again. I should not be thinking this. I definitely should not, not, not be thinking this. He loves _me_. The things he says he hates are probably the things he loves the most. The me he loves the most. And I don't think I'm overestimating myself here because he looks like he wants to ravish me and yeah, this is still strange.

I'm- I'm his most.

Wow. Okay. Brain: please function.

I need someone to slap me, right now. Or I need to kiss something. The locker, the floor, the anything. My brain is not functioning on a normal level at all. Dean! Dean! Dean, your boyfriend, Dean. I can't be thinking like this.

I'm so confused. I've never had my world thrown about quite like this before. I feel like I'm going to start shaking or start crying. My stomach feels sick.

This kind of hurts. I don't think I've ever hurt like this- except when I broke up with Dean. But this is a different kind of ache. It's the kind that- it just hurts, I know that. I shouldn't even care about him.

Tristan looks at me one last time, before closing his eyes in finality. He's going to go. 

"You don't, right? You don't feel… anything for me?"

I breathe out something, something that I can't even be sure I'm actually saying. "Not true."

It's so quiet, I'm hoping he didn't hear me say it. I know I've already wiped it from my mind.

This is not my day.

He swallows a gulp and looks up at me suddenly- a glimmer of hope in his eyes. He shuts it down before he can get his hopes raised enough to think that- that I might've said something. Something that would have made him- I don't know what. Made him do something.   
  
I need to go. I really, really, really need to go.

The chains are back on. Can't move. My mom would be so ashamed. _Move_, I tell my feet.  
  
Nope. Won't move. I try again, and Tristan takes his chance to talk.  
  
"What?" he asks quietly, a slight waver in his voice.  
  
Mr. Confidence. Right.  
  
I shake my head slowly. "I didn't say anything," I tell him, rubbing my hands briskly over my arms. My voice sounds like nothing happened. "I can go home now, right?"

He looked at me, a vague sickness displayed over his face.   
  
Hah. _I win, Tristan_, I think shakily.

"Fine," he spits out, and he's back to his old self. "Don't tell anybody... That I said all this crap to you. I didn't mean any of it."

"So you were messing with me again, Tristan?" I ask lightly. I know this boy too well to take that part seriously. Of course he's going to deny it now- he's a guy. Guys + emotions = disaster.  
  
"Yeah. That's it," he shrugs, eyes not meeting mine.  
  
"Wake _up_, Tristan," I tell him. "I wouldn't ever touch you. Ever. Much less love you."  
  
He hurts me, I hurt him. This is the way it's always been with Tristan. Because I know that it can't be that I love him and he loves me.

Because it's not true. 

A flash of anger passes by in his eyes and he purses his lips tightly.

Sometimes, he can be so predictable and unpredictable at the same time. He's like this book I read when I was about 14- I was somewhere around my 224th book- and I carried this one everywhere, but I just _couldn't_ read it. I don't know what it was, but I just carried it for a long long time and never read it.

I thought it'd be horrible. Horrible and predictable and awful. My mom joked with me for keeping it for so long and not reading it, she said it was like having a Godiva chocolate candy necklace and not being able to lick it. Except I probably wouldn't lick my book. Probably.

Then, one day, I was in geometry, and I was being completely bored by something with cosines and tangents, I looked in my backpack. There was that book, staring up at me. "Hi, book," I waved to it in my mind. Anybody watching me would've thought I was absolutely nuts. Well, if they could hear my thoughts. 

I decided now was the only time I would ever read it. I would not ever read it again after this. Then I'd go cold turkey on The Book.

As anybody could tell from this, of course I didn't go cold turkey on it. I read it straight through (with the exception of passing periods and gym class) and I walked home with Lane, still reading it. She's used to me doing that- it's not that I'm antisocial, it's just that only a couple people reign high up there in the bookshelf.

It was a great, great book for me at fourteen.

Then, I don't have time to think about it because my backpack slips to the floor off my shoulders and I reach down to grab it before the precious thermos of coffee is in there and I absolutely need it to keep my sanity.

Before I can grab the rubber handle of the coffee thermos, Tristan grasps my shoulder lightly and pulls me back up.

I stare at him with what I hope is a fierce and piercing glare. "Stop touching me!" I grab his warm hand and pull it off my uniform. "I'm not yours to touch."

"I was once before," he reminds me gravely. My eyes glanced down at my backpack. "Remember? You _cried_, Rory. You fucking _cried_. "

"Maybe you should've taken that as an indication that I didn't like you kissing me. How _could_ you do that? I didn't want to be kissed. I was just talking to you, and then you kissed me."

"Yeah," he said sarcastically, his hand that had been touching my shoulder earlier clenching slightly. "That's why you kissed me back, right? Because you, of course, had_ absolutely no choice_ in the matter at all. Because you didn't stop me."

"Because I was emotionally broken," I shot back. "I didn't have a say in the matter. All I could think of afterwards was that I let this jerk kiss me and it made me feel awful. Now I just feel tired and angry and I want to go home."

"So you're feeling _something_, right? You forget that I was emotionally broken, too."

My mind flashed back to that one day when everything went wrong, when Paris told me that she knew that Tristan had only gone out with her because I had told him to. He had never liked her. 

"Yeah, I'm not over Summer yet," he had told me.

Oh. Stupid, Rory. Very stupid. I get it now. He wasn't over _me_. Crap.

"You were not!" I said angrily. "Please. Like you ever remember her."

"Good, Mary. You've got it all figured out now, don't you?"

"Just a little bit," I admitted, my own lips pursing.

"Did you ever figure out that in everything we do, there's a choice? Everything, Mary. Even kissing. You could've chosen not to."

"But you were the one who kissed me! It wasn't my fault!"  
  
"Yes, it was!"

"Now, how is it that you kissing me is my fault."

"Well, it was _you_, wasn't it?"  
  
"So, I was the most available and convenient girl at that dumb party."  
  
"No, you were the most irreproachable, inconvenient girl at that dumb party."

"Oh, so you thought you'd have yourself a chase?"

"No!" he frowned. His face softened slightly. "So- you really _didn't_ want to kiss me? At all? Not even a little bit of you?"

I'm not exactly sure what to say. Either way, it could get me into some more unexpected trouble.

"I really have to go," I avoided the question, picking up my heavy backpack with both hands. He looked at me reproachfully, his eyebrows arching. I had to answer him. Okay, so I didn't.  
  
"Yes?" I said uncertainly.

Tristan blinked slowly once. Twice. Closed his eyes and didn't move. He was obviously debating this in his mind. The way it came out, that "yes" definitely sounded very much like a no, I really did want to kiss you. 

"Yes," I said more surely of myself. "I really didn't want to kiss you. I've never thought about it," I nodded, giving myself a little false self confidence.

Then, I was doing something completely unexpected. With a little swear, I dropped the backpack right on the solid grainy floor and put both of my hands on either side of his face and brought his lips down to mine. Kissing him passionately with every single cell in my body cheering with absolute glee and jubilation, I softly brushed the pad of my thumb along his cheekbones, not believing that my lips were on _his_ and that his lips were on_ mine _and that we were actually kissing_. _It was completely unbelievable.

I knew his eyes were widening in surprise, so I kissed him harder. He sighed against my mouth and suddenly we were both pressed up against the lockers, kissing as though the world was going to end right there and then and we wouldn't ever see each other again. His large hands instinctively went to the small of my back and my neck, and I think I would've sighed too, if I were the sighing type, when I felt that hand go to my neck and burning the precious nerve central at the nape of it.

Then, when he had started kissing me back just a mere few seconds after registering the shock that I had kissed him- I thought my knees were going to give out. That has never happened before and it felt like all the air in my body had been sucked out through my lips and gone to this boy- this Tristan whom I shouldn't have been kissing.

But it felt_ way too good_. There was absolutely nothing like kissing Tristan. I threaded my right hand through his hair, and found it really soft. Really soft and really fluffy and I wondered how it could stick up like that without some sort of magnetism from the ceiling to his head. His lips were incredibly soft and then I knew that if this kiss went any deeper- which I was sure was quite impossible- and oh, God, his tongue's sliding over mine and ohh... That's really, really nice. That's- okay, can't think.

I've never done that before. Kissed a guy like that, I mean.

I thought my first time- well, frenching a guy would be with Dean.

Oh, _CRAP_. Dean. Oh, _GOD_. Rory, stop this.

I pulled away from him breathlessly, just as his hand was trailing up to my hair. I had my lower arms gripping his arms at his side, and I shook my head, my lips red and my face flushed. "Can't do this," I whispered softly to him. "I can't do it."

He looked at me with upmost fear in his eyes. "Please don't cry," he told me endearingly, leaning down to kiss the side of my mouth. I let him, and then I pushed him back. "I'm not going to," I told him quietly, not able to look at him and feeling a lot like I was going to cry. "I'm going to have to go. The bus is going to leave soon and I... I can't be doing this with you."  
  
"Why?" his voice broke, his hand running through that soft hair of his that I'd- I'd just been caressing.

"Because I don't... Because I have feelings for someone else," I said, as honestly as I could.

That, above all else, surprisingly- had hit him the hardest. The other time he could tell that I'd just been saying that to get him to leave me alone. But this time- there was no reason for me to be mean to him because_ I_ had kissed him. 

He nodded, slowly, as though he were trying to register it through his mind.

"And of course, that someone isn't me, right?" he said bitterly. "You kiss me and then you throw me down. God, Rory. Don't you have any idea-" he shook his head again. "I've got to go. I can't stand around here and have you kiss me again and then-" he stopped in mid-sentence.

"I'm sorry!" I said, grabbing my backpack again. "I really, really am, Tristan. You're going to make another girl... well, really pissed off at you. You are."

"Don't talk to me. Ever again. I- can't do this either. Especially since you're in so much denial that even I can't bring you out of it. I can't believe your boyfriend doesn't notice that. Have a nice life, Rory Gilmore. Really," he said sarcastically, "you're going to make someone very happy, too."

He turned away before I could say anything more.

My shoulders dropped, my backpack slung around the slumpiness. Closing my eyes in resignation, I pushed my ajar locker door into the wall angrily.

Have a nice life?

God, what an annoying bastard jerk guy.

Right?

_-the end_


End file.
